50,000 Houston Homes Might Not Have Flooded in Hurricane Harvey, If Not for Climate Change

Almost half of the homes in Harris County, Texas, which was badly impacted by the storm, would not have been flooded had it not been for climate change. The study found that the destruction caused by Hurricane Harvey was felt differently in different parts of the area.

Computer models are used to see how the climate crisis is affecting naturally occurring weather events. About 50,000 homes in the Houston area probably wouldn't have been damaged if climate change hadn't contributed to Hurricane Harvey's strength. They found that the rain for the Hurricane was more than it would have been without climate change.

The team found that the social effects of the storm were worse for Latino communities. Latino households made up nearly half of the homes that flooded due to climate change.

Kevin Smiley is a sociology professor at Louisiana State University and the study's lead author. Over time, he said this could widen the gap.

People build wealth through their home. He told Earther that it's hard to recover from floods. The cascading implications go well beyond the floods in your home, because they can affect larger social issues.

The long-term aftermath of Hurricane Harvey could lead to gentrification, which could further displace vulnerable communities. Many of the Black families who had lived in the city for a long time were displaced by the Hurricane. The neighborhoods that were gentrified were more difficult to return to. In the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, Native communities in the Gulf along Louisiana's coast felt neglected. Immigrants died when the storm hit New York City because they were trapped in their flooded basement apartments.

In order to inspire more analysis of the real-time impacts of extreme weather on long-term stability for communities of color and other vulnerable areas in the U.S., it is necessary to conduct this study. He said that it could be applied to other extreme weather events. Social scientists are starting to ask hard questions about how people are going to cope with these changing environments.